Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 2 Premiere: What They Didn't Show

Last night was the season two premiere of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and while most people should have had barbecues to attend and labor to ignore, some people (myself) were at home watching my favorite blonde harpies pour water in a gold plated bowl for a dog named Jiggy to lap his dog tongue into.

Bravo had announced last week that it was going to air a special where the Housewives women would address Russell Armstrong’s suicide. That footage played before the start of last night’s episode.

The season premiere came only a month after Armstrong’s death and while many feel the show should have been cancelled all together, Bravo decided to air the special and the regular season.

The Season 2 premiere of Housewives started with all the women, except Taylor Armstrong, gathering at the home of Lisa Vanderpump to discuss the tragic news.

“A lot of us have some guilt about not seeing this coming,” says a teary eyed Kyle Richards while Lisa, a little too honestly said, “I had too much information to want to connect with him.”

“You cannot feel responsible for that, nobody can. It was his choice. As difficult as that is, life goes on. It has to,” said Kyle.

And with that, the show did go on, because it has to. Because Bravo doesn’t have any other programming to fill an hour time slot over Labor Day weekend unless they wanted to release a pre-season premiere of “The Rachel Zoe” project, which was actually just a sonogram of a fetus carrying a Birkin bag.

The premiere continued with some major changes says the shows executive producer, Douglas Ross, “We’ve completed editing on the first few episodes, but are still reviewing the rest of the season. Russell does not appear in the first several episodes. At this point, I can’t say if Russell will appear at all.”

The episode cut a scene where Taylor shopped for lingerie in the hopes of spicing up her marriage with Russell. In another scene, the Vanderpump’s made comments about Taylor manufacturing emotions, but that scene was also cut.

A moment that wasn’t cut was when Lisa Vanderpump and her husband called the Armstrong’s decision to try couple’s therapy “weak.”

“Lisa was very upset that the producers weren’t taking out that part,” says an insider.

The show also kept in Taylor’s meltdown where she cries; “I’m breaking” in a teaser for the season.

In general, the show tried not to dwell on Taylor’s sad face in any respect and so far Russell Armstrong makes zero appearances.

Since the incident, all the Housewives have been very supportive of Taylor. “They all asked that her story be handled delicately. This has brought them all much closer together,” says a source.